Healthcare facilities, such as hospitals, may utilize medication dispensing devices, such as automated dispensing machines (ADMs), to provide healthcare professionals with controlled access to medications. For example, a medication dispensing device may be stocked, e.g by a pharmacy, with multiple medications that may each have a variety of different doses and a variety of different forms, e.g. tablet, caplet, etc. A pharmacy will communicate an order for an amount of a medication prescribed for a patient, e.g. 2 milligrams (mg) of morphine, to a medication dispensing device, such as over a network. A healthcare professional, such as a nurse, will authenticate with the medication dispensing device and select the order. The medication dispensing device then physically dispenses the ordered amount of the medication to the healthcare professional. The healthcare professional then administers the dispensed medication to the patient. In some examples, the medication dispensing device may be configured to only dispense to the healthcare professional, and/or to only provide the healthcare professional with physical access to, the amount of the medication that was prescribed. In this manner, the amount of wasted medication is substantially minimized and the healthcare facility can control the healthcare professional's access to the medication.
However, in some instances an order received from a pharmacy may be for a variable dose of a medication, e.g. a range of 2-10 mg of morphine. In this instance, the medication dispensing device may allow the healthcare professional to select the medication item(s) that they would like to access, and the medication dispensing device may grant the healthcare professional with access to the selected medication item(s) so long as the total amount of the medication being dispensed is within the range of the order, e.g. within the range of 2-10 mg for the current example. However, if there are a variety of different forms and/or amounts of the medication in the medication dispensing device, it may be confusing and tedious for a healthcare professional to select which of the various medication items they should access to minimize waste, e.g. one 5 mg vial and one 2 mg vial for a 7 mg dose, etc. Furthermore, the healthcare facility's ability to discretely control the healthcare professional's access to the medications may be significantly reduced for variable dose orders, since the healthcare professional may be able to access more medication than they will be administering to the patient.